Received in trade from a generous soul who's name was not written down and is forever lost in my clouded mind. Thank you for the opportunity just the same.
Pours a slightly hazy reddish brown color with a thinnish off white head that quickly dissipates. Smells of caramel and brown sugar with a hint of chocolates and sulfur. Faint earthy hops try to provide balance but can't muster the strength to battle the maltiness of this brew. The flavor follows the aroma with sugary malt and a hint of chocolate and some miner off flavors. Medium body with a moderate level of carbonation and a sweet crisp mouthfeel. Decent beer, but really nothing special. Thanks for the state tick, but not a great beer for the style.

Anyhow, this isn't at all what I look for in a Schwarz. It pours black enough, but it's roasted malt character is like zilch. It starts off lightly bitter, gets a little sweet near the middle, and ends lightly bitter, with just the wee bittiest hint of ashen blackness near the very back end.

Still... let's try grading it for what's here, instead of what I expected it to be. The bottle bills it as a "black lager," not a schwarz proper, and that means it can pretty much be anything, right?

This is kind of like a crisper, more refreshing brown ale. By that I mean it's lightly bitter, medium bodied, and really drinkable. Only instead of going for nodes of nuts and biscuit, this tries to be like a really easy drinking, lagered version of a stout. In that respect it succeeds pretty well.

Black in color with a thin wispy head. Ring of lace at the top. Not much body to it.
Smells of burnt grains and bitter sweet chocolate.
Roasted grain flavor with some more bitter sweet chocolate. Nice herbal hop finish.
Mouthfeel is a bit thin. If they add a bit more body this would be a very good beer. Not that it's a bad beer.
Drinkability is good. Nice session beer when you want something roasted that's lighter than a stout or a porter.
Thanks to mugglesandhops for the beer. It's my first OK beer.

I have had this a couple times. First time was good the 2nd not so much but I think Choc had a problem a while back since most of the brews I had from them had some very bad off flavors. This time I found the Miner Mishap to be quite nice.

I always love trying to find local Oklahoma beers and I picked up a 6 pack of this up at Joe's Place in Norman. Pours a dark brown with a thin bubbly head with no lacing. Smelled mildly of coffee, sweet chocolate, caramel. Tasted like a mix of a porter and a pilsner if you ask me. All the other Schwarzbiers I have had don't taste like this. It was good though.

Pours a dark brown, a bit murky after I poured the bottle's sediment. (Side note, this is a very tight twist off, use an opener.) This beer isn't bad once it warms up, but cold or even cool, it's bit bland. Now the aroma has a lot of milk chocolate with a hint of burnt grains and husk. The flavor has a dry, slightly bitter cocoa (call it semi-sweet I guess) taste that dominates. There's also a bit of sour malt feel, sort like in an Irish stout. All in all, this is a fairly tasty schwarzbier, but there are better options out there.

Poured into a snifter. Miner Mishap pours a cloudy mahogany with a slightly off-white head. Decent head retention and pretty nice lacing for the style. Very faint aromas of cabbage at first, some white pepper, actually I am picking up some vinegar as well, but these aromas are not powerful. Very pleasant sour flavors. Slight hints of roasted malts. The finish has some cabbage and metallic flavors. Mouthfeel is a little thick, but the beer is crisp. Carbonation level is a little high for the style. Overall, Miner Mishap is not bad, but schwarzbier are not my style. I feel the beer could improve on certain points, but it is a good representation of the style.

Miner Mishap was poured from an undated 12oz short brown bottle into an Anchor Steam pint glass.

The color is black in the deepest reaches of the glass, but more brown around the edges. A fast pour will produce a single finger of fizzy mocha colored head that heads south for the winter leaving the top completely bare. No lace to speak of.

Aromas are a bit sparse at first so I advise you warm this one up quite a bit or drink at room temp. Slightly sweet caramel malt, wet straw, and some port wine is what I get. All very faint.

Flavors are best when this is warmed up quite a bit. Slighly smokey with mild coffee and vanilla bean backed by nutty and grassy tinges.

The feel is medium bodied and moderately carbonated. Highly drinkable.

It's a decent beer, but no head turner. Seems it was more enjoyable from the tap.

There is a dark brown color to it. Light passes through it, but you can't see what is on the other side of the glass clearly. It's dark enough that I can't tell if there is any cloudiness to it. The head was about quarter of an inch thick and consisted of tiny tan bubbles that gave it a thick and creamy appearance. It slowly faded to a thin film on the top of the beer. There is a bit of lacing on the side of the glass, but not much.

It has a nice roasted chocolate and caramel malt sent to it, just as the label describes. There is a touch of a coffee scent to it as well. You can also detect just a hint of hops. The smell is a pretty good indicator of the taste. The chocolate and roasted malts really come through. There is a slight mineral water taste to it. It finishes with a mild hoppiness. As the beer starts to warm, the hop flavors start to be more noticeable.

This is a medium bodied beer. The carbonation bites a little on the tongue.

A: Not quite nearly jet black, but really, really dark brown and thickly translucent with garnet edges & highlights. A tan head settles pretty quick but keeps a ring and tries its damnedest to leave lacing, but the stuff refuses to cling and keeps sliding down into the glass.

S: Faint lager yeast fermentation charcter.... But mostly lost of chocolate! Some molasses sweetness, a slight burnt edge, and hints of dark dried fruit. Smells more like a porter than any sort of dark lager.

T: Yeah! A total Baltic Porter profile (if a fairly uncomplex rendition). Loads of chocolate malt contribution with molasses and burnt toffee on a dark roasted base with lots of rich and sweet malty goodness. Hops do not really poke through much. Fairly clean and refined, which makes sense given the lager thing. But this does expand a bit as it warms. A faint coffee character comes out (with an ever so slight sharpness), softly burnt notes get more noticeably as well as does a bit of iron. I did not pick up any of the sourness that some reviewers have.

D: If I tried this blind, I would call it a low-ish gravity Baltic Porter. To my mind, black lagers still emphasize the lager part of the equation. This is easy drinking, but just a little too complex to call refreshing. It is reasonably clean, but it has too much that is bold and rough to make me totally think :"lager." Chief among these is the big showcase of chocolate malts and stuff I associate with porters in general (powdery cocoa, dark n' roasty, burnt toffee, etc.) and Baltic Porters in particular (dark fruits, overall clean profile, firm malty sweetness). So I am not entirely sure what this is, but it is good and easy drinking.

Purchased one 12oz bottle. Poured into glass and was very dark with some ruby hues with a 3 finger head.

Nice smell of malt sweetness.

Taste is smooth with a smoky porter like taste with a hint of sour. Detected a mild hop bitterness. Very delicious. Taste like a porter light if there was such a thing. Not near as heavy and could definetly drink a 6 pack with ease.

This review is edited because my last beer of this beer a year ago has changed 180 degrees. I believe the beer I got last year was either old or a bad batch. I have had several now in the sample packs sold and I find it to be one of my favorites. Completely different than the beer I tried and reviewed a year ago.

This beer poured with a nice aggressive 3 finger creamy head. The head slowly faded back into the beer and left a tan film across the top of the beer. This beer is very dark brown in color and way too dark to detect any carbonation. No lacing at all to speak of.

Aroma was of light chocolate, a bit of burnt/ roasted malt and a little earthiness. (maybe grain like)

Taste was initially of cocoa powder then turned slightly sweet and of roasted malt. Pretty nice flavor that suddenly fades near the end. You are left with a subtle sweetness and roasted taste in your mouth. An interesting alternative to the typical hop lingering finish of other styles.

Mouth feel is rather light and the carbonation brings some of the chocolate flavors to the forefront.

Drinkability is very nice and I could make y way through a couple of these brews.

12 ounce stubby bottle. The label classifies this as a black lager, and the pour doesn’t disappoint. The color is a dark brown bordering on black, with a slight head that is more foamy than it is creamy. Head retention is better than what I’ve seen in other Choc beers. Likewise the aroma is strong, with some notes of coffee – specifically dark and earthy like coffee grounds. Some chocolate is there but it’s a supporting note and not the main focus. The first taste reveals a charbroiled meat, caramelized steak like afterfinish. One thing I can say for the Choc beers: The flavor profiles are certainly unique. Further exploration of the taste profile yields a nice chocolate note that really shines at the end of the taste. Toasted malt is present throughout. My only complaint is that I’d like this beer to be more chewy, as the relatively thin body sort of washes away under the complex flavor profile. The carbonation seems to be a little heavy handed as well. This is a beer that I think could benefit from a bit more of an aggressive streak, as the flavors would work great in a robust Baltic Porter or Russian Imperial Stout. Here however, they all come rushing out in the beginning but are washed away much too quickly.

Appearance is a dark shade of brown, nearly black, with a short white head. Aroma is primarily earthy chocolate malt. Smells like it should be pretty sweet, with a touch of licorice. Flavor doesn't carry the expected sweetness and is heavy on the roasted and chocolate malts. Underneath, there's some slight bitterness with some caramel malt becoming more apparent as the beer warms. Mouthfeel is medium to light-bodied with a healthy amount of carbonation. Not exactly sure what the style calls for, but seems a bit over-carbonated to me.

Overall, this was a pretty good black lager. A little too heavily roasted for my taste to have more than a couple, but this is a nice, flavorful beer worth trying. Thanks to Chris for the opp!

Thanks to springdogg for this interesting extra, poured from a bottle into a pint glass.

This is a nice looking beer, it pours black with some slight ruby glow around the edges. The head is light tan, thick at first but fades to nothing quickly with no lacing.

The smell is all roasted malt, coffee and bitter chocolate.

The taste is... acidic? The bitter coffee and roasted malt hit the tongue first, but they are followed, and overpowered, by a burnt coffee acidity that is bordering on unpleasant. There is a nice splash of wheat and chocolate at the end of the taste that saves it, and the taste is interesting enough to want more.

The beer is well carbonated and has a nice body and crisp finish. The low alcohol combined with the coffee flavor is a nice combination.

pours a thin red orangeish black with a heavy thick tan head that disapers to a thin lasing on the glass, the taste is rich carmal and chocalat malts and powerfull hops that are kind of piney also hints of coffiee. the malt starts off sweet then gets sour and is overpowered by bitter. very little carbonaation in this one for a lager, this is a decant beer that i got in a bif that i am glad to have had a chance to try, would love to have more some day

Acquired via trade from timbro81, so a big Thank You goes out to him. Poured from a 12oz bottle into a US tumbler pint glass.

A: The beer is a dark brown color with a large light brown head that fades slowly and leaves a thick lace on the glass.

S: The aroma is of chocolate, caramel, dark roasted malts and lager yeast, with just a touch of hops in the background.

T: The taste is malty and smoky up front with flavors of chocolate, caramel and some dark fruit. There's a mild and pale hops presence that provides a decent balance. The bready flavor of lager yeast doesn't quite dominate but it remains a strong background the whole way through. The after-taste is slightly bready and slightly sweet.